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Radio NZ's Kathryn Ryan speaks to Ben Skinner, a US journalist whose story for Bloomberg Business Week outlines allegations of abuse on board foreign-flagged fishing vessels; as well as Eric Barratt, the CEO of Sanford, which is investigating the allegations of abuse on one of its charter boats. (30′29″)

"Take the opportunity of this major rebuff to reverse its self-defeating policy of allowing the country to be sold off, farm by farm"

Justice Miller’s decision to order a review of the decision to approve the sale of the Crafar Farms to the appropriately named Milk NZ, owned by Shanghai Pengxin of China, is a welcome outbreak of sanity in this whole sorry saga. Not to mention a two fingered judicial poke in the eyes of the Government and its Overseas Investment Office rubberstampers.

"a two fingered judicial poke in the eyes of the Government and its OIO rubberstampers."

.It’s only three weeks ago that the Government was trumpeting the “strict conditions” attached to the approval. They have been swept aside by the judge for the load of piffle that they are. The decision recognises that the would-be foreign owner has no dairy farming experience, thus failing the legislative requirement that it have relevant business expertise. The Chinese company, and the Government, aimed to get around this inconvenient law by contracting Landcorp to manage the Crafar Farms. The appellant’s lawyer pointed out that this would set a precedent for future land sales as any “well-resourced overseas conglomerate could come and buy dairy farms in New Zealand provided it had a contract with Landcorp”. This attempt to sugarcoat the bitter pill of loss of yet more of our land could be described as a policy of phony New Zealandisation. Landcorp would be nothing more than a property manager for the Chinese owners..The judge recognised the central fact that the sale would bring no discernible benefit to New Zealand, as required under the Overseas Investment Act, saying that the benefits were likely to accrue regardless of who owns it. “If a given benefit will happen anyway, it cannot easily be described as a substantial consequence of the overseas investment”. Exactly. CAFCA couldn’t have put it better. .

“any well-resourced overseas conglomerate could come and buy dairy farms provided it had a contract with Landcorp”.

CAFCA stresses that the race or nationality of the buyers is irrelevant. Flogging the Crafar Farms overseas is reprehensible regardless of whether the foreign buyers are Chinese, Americans, British or Australians. .But CAFCA doesn’t carry a flag for Sir Michael Fay and his merry men. His track record speaks for itself. If his consortium succeeds in buying the Crafar Farms there is nothing to stop it onselling them overseas for a tidy profit. The opportunity to have the Crafar Farms genuinely stay in local hands was lost when the receivers rejected Landcorp’s bid to buy them outright (as opposed to the booby prize of managing them for a foreign owner)..This decision provides a chance to halt this whole policy of flogging off the country’s agricultural land (of which they ain’t making any more), which is New Zealand’s comparative advantage in the global market. New Zealand is, first and foremost, an agricultural country. And we’re very, very good at it, which is why foreign buyers want to snap it up. As a bare minimum first step, freehold sales of such land to foreign buyers should be stopped ASAP, with them only allowed to lease land, as is common practice overseas. And all such leases should be subject to much stricter conditions and scrutiny than is the case now. .CAFCA urges the Government to take the opportunity of this major rebuff to reverse its self-defeating policy of allowing the country to be sold off, farm by farm. Or will it do what it has done in other such judicial defeats and simply change the law in order to get its own way?

The Government is asking loaded questions about
how Christchurch’s
multibillion dollar post-earthquake recovery will be financed? There are less than
subtle hints about flogging off Christchurch’s
large and very valuable portfolio of publicly-owned assets. Wrestling back some
of the ill-gotten gains of the big foreign banks is a much more palatable
alternative.

News that the Big Five Australian-owned banks made a combined NZ profit of $3 billion in 2011 means only one thing – they’re making too much money out of us. They must be laughing all the way to the bank. Hang on, they are the bank..These banks always make a big PR fuss about how much they contribute to the NZ community. But these are exactly the same banks who, in December 2009, settled out of court with IRD for attempting to dodge payment of an astonishing $2.2 billion of taxes that, between them, they avoided via deliberately complicated structured financial transactions. And that out of court settlement was for 20% less than what IRD was seeking – plus they would have had to pay costs if they’d persisted in going to court and losing (two of them had already lost in court before they all decided to throw in the towel)..So that's how they rode out the recession, by not paying nuisance costs such as taxes. Not an option for the rest of us mugs who have to pay our taxes, whether we like it or not. This was the biggest tax avoidance case in New Zealand’s history – and it happened at the same time as the deposits in those Australian-owned banks were guaranteed by New Zealand taxpayers (who got no say in the governance of those banks)..

The Government wrings it's hands about the global financial crisis while super profits are sucked out of the country

As a result they paid 47% more tax in 2011 than they did in 2010. But they still sucked $3 billion out of the country. These super profits need to be taxed more. This comes at a time when the Government is wringing its hands about how is it going to finance NZ’s recovery from the global financial crisis? Its’ only ideas are to borrow more; sell public assets; slash the State sector and public services; and bash beneficiaries. Here’s an idea – instead of grinding the faces of the poor to pay for a global crisis caused by the crimes of transnational banks, it should raise the tax on the transnational banks that are creaming it here in this country. .Specifically the Government is asking loaded questions about how will Christchurch’s multibillion dollar post-earthquake recovery be financed? There are less than subtle hints about flogging off Christchurch’s large and very valuable portfolio of publicly-owned assets. Wrestling back some of the ill-gotten gains of the big foreign banks is a much more palatable alternative. Make the rich pay..That would be poetic justice in the case of at least one of those Aussie banks. One of the reasons why Westpac was selected as one of the eight finalists for the 2011 Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand was because, shamefully, it pressured its Christchurch tellers to meet normal sales targets by pushing loans and insurance products onto financially stricken Christchurch customers after the earthquakes, adopting a “business as usual” policy. That bank can definitely afford to pay more tax. It paid its’ Chief Executive Officer $5.8 million and $5.4 million respectively, over the past two years, making him the highest paid CEO in NZ..Squeeze them until it hurts. They've been bleeding NZ dry for too long.